1963

Hands off Cuba! flier for a meeting to be held at Oswald's New Orleans address.
NARA / President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

February-March: For weeks, Oswald plans an attack on Edwin Walker, a retired general whom Kennedy had fired for espousing extreme right-wing propaganda to his troops. Oswald meticulously documents his plan with photographs of Walker's residence, hand-drawn maps and political statements; he creates an archive for future historians. Oswald has his photograph taken holding a weapon that will later be identified as the gun that killed Kennedy.

April 10: Oswald takes one shot at Edwin Walker and narrowly misses the retired general's head. Oswald escapes on foot and public transit. The crime will remain unsolved until after Oswald's widow is questioned following Kennedy's death.

April 24: Oswald moves to New Orleans. After finding a job as a maintenance man for the Reily Coffee Company, he sends for his wife and daughter.

Lee Harvey and Marina Oswald with their daughter in a photo booth in October 1963.
NARA / President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

Summer: Cuba and Fidel Castro become Oswald's obsession. He becomes the founder and sole member of a New Orleans chapter of the pro-Castro Fair Play for Cuba, against the organization's wishes. He also contacts Carlos Bringuier, the leader of an anti-Castro group, to offer his help.

September: Oswald travels from Houston to Mexico City hoping to get to Cuba. He petitions the Cuban Consulate, but without a Soviet visa, he is denied entry.

October 2: Oswald returns to Dallas. His pregnant wife and his daughter are living with Ruth Paine, a family friend, in Irving, Texas, in Dallas County.

October 15: Oswald takes a job at the Texas School Book Depository as a clerk after a neighbor of Mrs. Paine mentions the open position to the family.

President John and Jacqueline Kennedy arrive in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963.
NARA

November 19: The Dallas Times Herald publishes the schedule and route of President Kennedy's upcoming visit to Dallas.

November 21: President Kennedy flies to Texas to deliver some political speeches. The day includes appearances in San Antonio, Houston and Fort Worth. Oswald spends the night in Irving with his family.

November 22: President Kennedy will be assassinated on this day.

Oswald wakes early, leaves his wedding ring and goes to work at the School Book Depository.

The president makes remarks in Fort Worth before taking a 13-minute flight to Dallas. From the airport, the presidential motorcade drives toward the Trade Mart, where Kennedy is scheduled to speak.

Lee Harvey Oswald's arrest at the Texas Theater in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
NARA / President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

12:30pm CST (approximately)
As the presidential motorcade winds past Dealey Plaza, multiple shots ring out. President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally are both hit, and the car speeds off.

12:34pm CST
The United Press International news agency broadcasts the first news report of the shooting.

Jack Ruby under arrest in Dallas, Texas on November 24, 1963.
NARA / President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection

1:16pm CST
Dallas Police officer J. D. Tippit is gunned down in front of seven witnesses who will later identify Lee Harvey Oswald as the killer.

1:40pm CST
Oswald slips into the Texas Theater without paying. Police enter and apprehend him as a suspect in the Tippit killing. When he is discovered to be the only unaccounted employee of the Texas School Book Depository, he is suspected of the Kennedy assassination. Two days of interrogation will follow, but Oswald will never confess.

2:38pm CST
Aboard Air Force One, Lyndon B. Johnson takes the oath of office to become the 36th president of the United States.

Midnight CST
Oswald appears before the press. In the crowd is Dallas businessman Jacob Rubenstein, known as Jack Ruby.

The funeral procession for John F. Kennedy leaves the White House, November 25, 1963.
Photograph by Abbie Rowe, National Park Service, in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston

November 23: Jack Ruby closes his strip club and spends time at police headquarters, asking about Oswald's pending transfer to the county jail. Police announce that Oswald will be transferred at 10am the next day.

November 24: Jack Ruby sends a moneygram at Western Union. The receipt is stamped 11:17am.

11:21am CST
Police remove Lee Harvey Oswald from the police station to be transferred to the county jail. Jack Ruby approaches Oswald in a crowded hall and shoots him.

1968

April 4: Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot to death in Memphis, Tennessee. Two months later, James Earl Ray will be apprehended in London and confesses to the crime, though he will recant his confession afterward.

June 5: In the early morning hours, after winning the California Democratic Primary for the presidential nomination, John Kennedy's younger brother, Robert Kennedy, is shot and killed in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Sirhan Sirhan is apprehended for the crime.